From sunrise to sunset… or was that sundowners?!

May 11, 2023

What a glorious sight when the jet-lag found me awake quite early… but having slept well, a part from the strange sound which woke Em and I around 4am, which we deduced was some sort of shift-change claxon! We’re very near the docks, railway and a large building site!

And so the sun rose on a stunning autumn day ~ beautiful blue skies, warm sunshine, and time to explore… and off we set.

First stop was to join a tour Em had booked for us, a new Melbourne Experience, The Dome Tour at the Royal Exhibition Building, and it was fab! We arrived a little early giving us time first to wander the lovely Carlton Gardens before gathering with fellow tour members for a fascinating hour being shown the stunning interior of this large hall, the former entrance of the site built to house the International Exhibition of 1880; learning about its interesting history and ascending to the dome and the spectacular views of the Melbourne skyline.

Next stop was, of course, coffee… actually the loo then coffee (too much detail?!). The site is shared with the much newer Museum of Melbourne, so having been suitably replenished, we spent the rest of the morning exploring this great museum space. This included: a living forest exhibit; the most complete triceratops skeleton in the world (around 90%); the First Nations area with the most mesmerising and beautiful installation involving light and images projected onto a series of suspended arcs of plastic which moved to the music and voice over, telling the story of the indigenous peoples… and, rather different, the fun, “Mini Mega Model Museum” of scale models of myriad items and enlarged models of other items with very witty information panels. A fun morning!

We then wandered to Lygon Street, otherwise known as ‘Little Italy’ for lunch at the original Brunetti’s ~ quite a sight to behold, both architecturally and its stylish displays of its wares. Fortified, we wandered on to visit the Queen Victoria Markets, which is enormous, over 600 traders, and ‘old’, at over 130 years, and all ‘we’ bought was a duck keyring for Em’s collection!

After failing yesterday, we ended our day’s escapades on the Circle Tram ~ there are lots of trams in Melbourne and in the city centre they are all free… this one, using old tramcars, is for tourists, completing a circuit of the city and offering commentary. We circumnavigated Melbourne without me falling asleep as jet-lag hour hit!

Returning to the apartment, I’ve just enjoyed the most stunning sunset… with a sun-downer of Melbourne Gin ~ well, it’d be rude not to… cheers!